JCC 2018 Celebrity Deadpool (no sequels plz)

Dammit vin, I knew that wasn't the Billy Graham @timmoishere was talking about and I still looked to check!

 

I always liked Graham for a couple of reasons. He always kept his message simple and straightforward. He preached the gospel of Jesus Christ and the availability of God's love for all people. He never seemed to get past wonder at John 3:16. He didn't preach about how God wanted to make you super-rich. He preached that God loved you.

Secondly, for most of his career, he stayed well out of politics. Again, he probably felt it was out of his bailiwick. He advised a ton of Presidents, but always on the simplicity of God's love and salvation through Jesus. His son Franklin Graham has served as a sad example of what happens when ministers feel the need to comment on every political issue that comes down the pike. For Billy, it wasn't, probably, that political things were irrelevant; it was just more that principles and simple morality based around Jesus was the truest way to national healing.

Thirdly, he stepped out of the public eye with such grace that a lot of people are probably surprised to hear that he was still alive. He didn't pull a Pat Robertson and stay in the public eye as he slowly descended into senility and said increasingly ridiculous things.

I just respected him a lot. He should be an example to all megachurch pastors today, but, even as they give him lip-service for the next few days, they'll continue to turn their back on much of what he stood for.

 

Unless you were Jewish or queer.

 

It seems that staying out of politics didn't extend to the Vietnam war, also.

 

https://www.theonion.com/panicked-billy-graham-realizes-he-took-wrong-turn-into-1823199623

 

Or female.

 

Yeah, I knew I'd take some heat for that post.

Well, number one, his favorite scripture was always given as John 3:16, a verse that plainly says "God so loved the world." In fact, Graham said repeatedly that God loved Jews, gays and women; every time he quoted that Scripture. The love of God for every person on the planet was never in question in his preaching. Unless you can get me a quote, at which point I will stand corrected.

As far as women, I have always found it interesting that his wife never even converted to his denomination. You'd think a preacher that famous would have asked her at least say that she had, but to my knowledge she never did. So, he clearly didn't hold to that whole thing about the man being the absolute head of the house.

That said, he was a man of his time and he certainly did say reprehensible things about homosexuality in particular, but he reversed his position on a lot of things, including some of his views on homosexuality and publically apologized for them. He also did occasionally get into partisan politics, and he later said that he regretted those moments as well and considered them mistakes. He was human; he made mistakes; and I certainly don't intend to either endorse everything he said or to die on the "defend Billy Graham" hill. But if you want to see the kind of consistently partisan minister, constantly spouting toxic speech, Graham could have been, check out his son. You'll probably respect Graham's views and his restraint a lot more after you see who he might have been. Even being a man of his generation; his son holds views much more retrograde than his father did and that's basically unheard of in terms of the Evangelical community; nearly always goes the other way.

 

thank you twentieth century televangelists for overwhelming the culture with lowest common denominator christianity: don't be gay. don't abort a fetus. praise jesus.

 

There were plenty of gay people and straight allies throughout his lifetime; Billy Graham was just a bigot, and by all accounts regarding his behavior into the 2010s he died about as bigoted as he lived. I'm not lowering the bar for him even his son is an even bigger turd.

 

Oh man I forgot to get quotes. Not to worry, there's an entire NBC Article on the subject. Incidentally I'm fond of his liberal use of "I said that, but I didn't mean it/shouldn't have," because that gives us a nice rhetorical through-line to President Trump and therefore makes it pretty obvious to us these days that he totally meant it.

 

https://www.ajc.com/news/national/b...m-image-was-tarnished/DCj06gfORZJLYa30cLawWL/

 

Yeah, I had already read that LGBTQ legacy article when I made my post. I have some issues with the article, but we won't go through it line by line or anything. And we all remember the Nixon tapes. Shameful, even reprehensible, like I said; his dishonesty about the conversations was also very upsetting. I wasn't unaware of those things, I just chose to talk about the things I respected about him, like I have with basically everyone I've posted about after their death in these Deadpool threads. Regardless, like I said, I'm not going to die on the hill defending him. I don't have heroes for exactly the reason that sometimes you hear a tape of Billy Graham ranting about the Jews. I just spoke briefly about some of the things I liked about him, particularly in relation to a lot of other ministers of his stature; I never intended to endorse his more reprehensible opinions. I certainly hope that you guys know me well enough to know that.

 

I think Rogue1.5’s distinction is fair. His private beliefs or even his religious teachings can be whatever they are. Though one may disagree, a practitioner of a religion that has traditionally disagreed with homosexuality—or eating meat, or sex outside marriage, or interfaith marriages, or eating during a “fast” periods—is unremarkable. That’s what they earnestly believe after all, and is part of the fabric of their thought.

Special criticism is reserved for the person that tries to be politically active, which has nothing to do with how they and willing followers live, but encroaches on the rest of our lives.

I am unimpressed with Graham’s theology and disagreed with many things he did. But he’s worlds better than the Falwell’s or even his own son, who are partisan Republican hacks who occasionally include religious rhetoric in their campaign speeches.

 

Pretty surprising to see a Christian be a piece of **** in their beliefs. Never happens.

 

And I have rewarded this effectively pointless, barely substantiated difference by not posting a YouTube link to The Coup's "Piss On Your Grave," literally the least I could do. Now as I have done this extremely difficult task while also going above and beyond the Billy Graham Standard(TM) by not wishing death on millions of people, I expect multi-paragraph whitewashes.

Edit: I mean, I'm mad and ****posting, but I like you guys, surely there are figures more deserving of your rehabilitative efforts? Why are we concerning ourselves with the precise degrees of awful these jerks inhabit?

 

Hoe about this?
Join in everybody:


We'll sell them:
Jesus hats
Jesus socks
Jesus coats
We'll sue the Pope
Jesus shoes
Jesus dirty books too
I wonder what will Billy Graham do

 

Graham preached love and kindness to and for everyone who was straight and white (but preferably male).

 

Barbara Ann Alston. She sang with the 60s group The Crystals, who had hits with Da Doo Ron Ron and Then He Kissed Me, among others. She was 74 and died from the flu.

 

Damn flu!

BTW I always liked replacing Kissed with Kicked. Makes for a more entertaining song. Also now I want to watch Adventures in Babysitting.

 

I mean, I made my post just because he came up in the thread. Like I said before, it's not some personal crusade (no pun intended) to defend him. I haven't spent years trying to rehabilitate his image in the minds of people who don't like him or anything. Yeah, there are certainly people more deserving of me defending them, but they didn't just die and get brought up in a thread about celebrities dying where I generally take time to give my thoughts. I think we should probably drop it at this point; I was actually planning to not post about it at all after last night. I got that people were doing some ****posting and, at that point, there's no real reason to try parsing anything. But I did just want to respond to your question there to make it clear that I don't just go around defending Billy Graham all the time or anything.

And I like you too!

 

Yeah I don’t know that there was much of a “defense.” We mostly just said it was inappropriate for religious figures to use their faith as a tool of political agitation.

I don’t think any of us disagree. And that it came up with an otherwise disagreeable person highlights why it is important.

 

He hit me and it felt like a kick!

 

Actress/singer/dancer Nanette Fabray.

 

I'm sorry for your loss, Juliet. I'm sure you were a huge fan of someone whose career was decades before your birth.

This probably won't mean anything to the Yanks, but Alice from the Vicar of Dibley passed away, aged 53.